White House Down keeps you laughing enough to miss how much it is insulting you

In my house, Die Hard has been the gold standard for action flicks my entire life. It is the perfect marriage of action and comedy. Bruce Willis brought something to John McClane that few leading men have been able to replicate ever since, but there have been many attempts. There’s been Die Hard on a battleship (Under Siege), Die Hard on a mountain (Cliffhanger), Die Hard on bus (Speed) and even Die Hard on Air Force One (Air Force One), to say nothing of Die Hard in an airport, NYC, the internet and Russia (the Die Hard sequels). They’ve worked to varying degrees, which makes it a genre of action filmmaking that is often recreated.

This summer, audiences have been “treated” to two Die Hard in the White House flicks: Olympus Has Fallen and now White House Down. I had a love/hate with the former, which was much more a straight action movie. White House Down is certainly meant to be much funnier, almost more of a buddy-cop film reminiscent of the Bad Boys series. The film gets a lot right: the comedic dynamic between stars Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx is spot on, the practical action and special effects are solid and the flick is filled with a surprisingly deep cast. But even though audiences are going to enjoy watching White House Down, the movie just isn’t very good.

For any action flick like this, you’ve got to be able to suspend a certain amount of disbelief. You hope that the story can keep itself plausible, creating a world where you can accept the things that are happening on the screen, the kind of things that you pray could never happen in real life. Sadly, White House Down crosses that line early on and never pauses to look back. It’s almost camp – which, if you stop to consider that Foxx, Richard Jenkins and James Wood have six Oscar nominations and one win between them, is scary in and of itself. Which isn’t to say that camp can’t be good … but you push that line and take yourself seriously at the same time.

I’d like to think that White House Down knows exactly what it comes across as: Bad Boys meets Die Hard at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Unfortunately, it is simultaneously trying to be a smart and twisty, edge-of-your-seat action thriller. It layers in backstory and plots early on just to recall them as part of twists or jokes later. I don’t think Chekov had a young girl’s talent as a flag twirler in mind when he talked about “introducing a gun in the first act.” But pair that with some of the dumbest plot twists and most cringe-worthy dialogue imaginable, and you’ve got a sad situation.

After Ray, I thought Jamie Foxx could do pretty much anything, but he certainly proves here he doesn’t have the “Presidential Voice.” Tatum is serviceable and enjoyable at times, but never really takes over the film. You’ve got Jenkins and Woods with opposing too-subtle and over-the-top performances. The film absolutely wastes one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood in Jason Clarke while giving Lance Reddick almost nothing to work with. And don’t even get me started on Maggie Gyllenhaal.

But for as stupid as I felt walking out of White House Down, I didn’t hate it … and I really can’t explain why. I enjoy my fair share of mindless entertainment, especially summer popcorn flicks like Armageddon and Independence Day. But this was less than those movies, successful at making the audience laugh just often enough for them to miss that they were being insulted.